Cooking with Ergot by Luisa Prieto – review

Rating:  

His plan: learn more about Carter Brooks.

The result: protecting Carter against the man who’d followed and killed in his stead.

Filled with a dark humor only a witch could love, Carter was nothing like Dominic had imagined. He also didn’t believe in magic. Dominic must now balance his growing feelings for Carter as well as protect him from the hunter who’d like Carter to join him.

My review: Had I only known about this book from the publisher’s site, I would have passed it over as being of little interest, but the author, fortunately, sent a copy for review, and I will be forever grateful for that. Cooking with Ergot is a gem of a story – clever, witty, sly, and with genuine suspense arising from the sinister villain of the piece, Carter’s cousin.

Right out of the box, you realise this is no ordinary m/m, with a recipe for a haunted ginger bread house (which I assume is real) which warns ” Think of this as a spell you’re casting. You do not toss the eye of newt into the cauldron without first putting in the bog water.” The recipes are scattered through the novella, and are worth the price of admission in themselves.

Prieto has created a supernatural story which manages to be spooky, not cheesy, and sympathetic to believers in Wicca and paganism without excessive amounts of tedious woo-woo (my main reason for being bored witless by shows like Supernatural.) The humour is a big part of that creation, but so are her characters. Dominic is a great cook and a practicing witch – with a stuffed tiger called Blaise as his familiar. Much as I liked Dominic, it’s Blaise who steals the show with his protective, jealous bitchiness and air of slight menace. Carter might be chosen by Dominic, but he needs Blaise’s approval before any serious relationship can happen.

Carter’s more complex because he’s in denial about his magical inheritance as the seventh son of a seventh son, and thinks his cousin, Simon, is a dangerously homicidal sociopath with a ridiculous bee in his bonnet about witches. Simon is a dangerously homicidal sociopath, unfortunately for Dominic and his kind, and is more than happy to carry out his inherited abilities and perceived duties as a witchfinder. He’s prepared to kill witches and all who protect them – and if that means Carter, so be it. He’s a chilling obsessive, and a great bad guy.

Prieto’s deftness in characterisation is matched by her skill in creating atmosphere and settings with few, well-chosen words, whether in talking about seductively tasty recipes, magically enhanced (and delightful sex scenes which are some of the best I’ve read in ages), or creating tension:

Carter’s heart slammed against his chest, offering this moment a soundtrack. He’d once read somewhere that it was difficult to hit a moving target. He did not want to test the theory.

Ahead, there was an empty space. Carter darted around the front of the van, keeping close to a car. This labyrinth of vehicles gave him a small protection.

Every labyrinth had a monster, though. Something that had been nudged to the side and forgotten. A minotaur, if he remembered his legends correctly.

A window shattered behind him.

His minotaur was close.

Really the only nitpick I have about this story is the coincidence of Dominic’s brother finding a lover at the same time Dominic did (not sure why that was necessary, though it was cute) and the only flaw is that I wanted more, damn it! At 116 pages it feels heftier than it is, but I could stand to read a lot more of Dominic and Carter and the peculiar world they inhabit. And of course, Blaise. I could never tired of reading about Blaise.

Heartily recommended – Cooking with Ergot is a very enjoyable, well-written, and highly original novella.